Considering a trip to London? It’s a popular destination with many hotel choices, with many London hotels available on award points or free nights. But do you wonder how the hotel point value compares for the different chains and which are the best deals? In preparation for a trip in October, we delved into the various hotel chains, the available awards, and the points values that could be attained with some very interesting results. We looked for a central location and focused our searches on hotels within 1.5 miles of the city center.
Marriott
The current Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card offer of 5 free night certificates after $5000 of spend in 3 months piqued our interest. We’re going to London for four nights in the fall and thought that would be the perfect opportunity to use the Marriott certificates. And so we started to search Marriott.
Marriott has eight hotels in the city center, all of which are quite lovely and rather expensive, starting at $569/night. The hotel award rates are equally high. The 50,000 point certificates can be topped off, but with a limit of 65,000 points. None of the Marriott hotels are under this level, so the certificates can’t be used in the city center. See the table of hotels and points below for the details.
Now let’s delve a little deeper into the results. On the right we’ve graphed the points required (orange bars) as well as the resulting hotel point value (green line). The point values range from 0.55 to 0.84c/point. Marriott Bonvoy currently offers a 35% bonus to buy points, so purchase prices start at 0.93c/point at higher volumes (gray line). This is still quite a bit more than the point values. Only purchase points if you’re topping off to complete your award.
Overall, we’re not terribly impressed with the London award hotel options at Marriott.
IHG
Next, let’s move to IHG, one of our favorites particularly for their 4th night free. Although widely known for the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express brands, IHG covers many other brands including the higher-end Intercontinental, Kimpton, and Six Senses.
IHG has many properties to choose from in the London area (10 within 1.5 miles of the city center). The hotels range in price from 38,750 to 50,250 points per night with the Intercontinental Park Lane as an outlier at 86,250 points. The point values take the 4th night free into account and would be 33% higher for shorter stays. These hotels have a much lower cash price point than the Marriott hotels. The Marriott hotels start at $569 and go up to $961 per night. Whereas, the IHG hotels start at $277 per night and all but the Intercontinental Park Lane and the Kimpton Fitzroy are under $410 per night.
The hotel point value ranges from 0.68-1.08c/point. If you’re staying less than 4 nights, point values are 0.51-0.81c/point (dashed green line). IHG is currently running a promotion with an 80% bonus for point purchases. You can purchase points for as little as 0.56c/point. That’s below nearly all the hotel point values, so it’s a deal! Get moving if you want to take advantage of it, the promotion ends March 7, although specials occur frequently.
Hilton
Hilton has many properties in London, 13 within about 1.5 miles of the city center. One of these, the Biltmore Mayfair, comes in at an astounding 384,000 points per night. We eliminated it from any consideration here!
The other 12 hotels have a fairly tight point range from 60,000 to 80,000 per night. The exception is the Conrad at 209,000 points per night, although it is not the most expensive at 375 GBP/night. Clearly the Conrad is not interested in point-redemption customers, offering a hotel point value of only 0.23c/point. These are all very nice, upscale properties. Point values range from 0.44-0.80c/point excluding the Conrad. Hilton is offering a 90% bonus on points purchases, so they can be purchased at as little as 0.53c/point. Overall about even with the value given, with Trafalgar St. James and Hilton Park Lane as highly beneficial.
Hyatt
Hyatt is well known for it’s high hotel point values, although smaller footprint, and has 5 properties close to the city center to choose from at 20,000 or 25,000 points per night. Again, these are very nice upscale hotels, three of them Hyatt Regencys. Point values are 1.71 to 2.47c/point, much higher than any other hotel brand. Hyatt has a 20% bonus on buying points, resulting in a purchase price of 1.92c/point at all levels. This is a little lower than most of the point values, with Blackfriars and The Churchill as sweet spots.
Wyndham
We recently obtained the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business card and wanted to see what they had to offer. Their footprint is generally much smaller and only one property, the Days Inn Hyde Park, is within 1.5 miles of the city center and can be booked for 15,000 points. That’s a hotel point value of 1.69c/point if you have Wyndham points. Caesar’s Rewards points can also transfer to Wyndham.
Overall Conclusions
Now let’s compare everything on a single chart. Again, the bars show the points/night, the green line is the hotel point value, and the grey line is the current point purchase price for that brand.
Key conclusions:
We learned many things from this analysis, not only about London hotel point values, but also how the hotel point programs compare in general. A few key conclusions are below, but are only some of the insights from this research.
- Hyatt points have a much higher value than any other brand. It’s the only brand to consider for a transfer of bank points. Only Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt Rewards points transfer to Hyatt. Other bank points (American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, Venture Rewards) should only be transferred to hotel programs to top off for a reward.
- Hyatt and IHG have some of the best and most reasonable point redemptions in central London and Hilton has a few sweet spots. Naturally, your choice depends on what programs you have and where you want to stay.
- Marriott hotels in the city center require over 80,000 Bonvoy points/night and do not qualify for free night certificates, even with a top-off. Look at our post about using Marriott certificates in London to learn about Marriott hotels further out that qualify. The hotel point value is good, but it is because the hotel cost is very high compared to the other brands. If you want luxury hotels or have high status in Marriott Bonvoy, it may be the right brand for you.
- Average point values – Marriott 0.72c/pt, IHG 0.80c/pt, Hilton 0.54c/pt, Hyatt 2.08c/pt
- Generally, buying points is NOT a good deal unless buying a few points for a reward redemption. An exception is the IHG current 80% bonus, which makes point purchases a bargain.
So What Did We Decide?
We’ve used a lot of our points and don’t have a treasure trove in any program, so we’ll either need to buy or transfer points. We considered three key options:
- Purchasing points for an IHG hotel
- Purchasing points for Hilton Trafalgar St. James
- Transferring points to Hyatt
Although Hyatt values are high, we can get even higher value using our transferable points for business class airfare. We have been very pleased with our Kimpton hotel experiences and particularly like historic hotels so the Kimpton Fitzroy got our attention. The hotel was originally completed in 1898 and was designed by Charles Fitzroy Doll, who also designed the dining room of the Titanic. It is located close to the British Museum and we certainly enjoy the Kimpton daily social hours. We’ll also be sure to use the Kimpton “secret phrase” for an extra bonus. It fits the bill for us so we booked it!
